National and international rights groups in Egypt are once again in conflict with the Egyptian government. On Monday, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi signed a bill into law which regulates the activities of non-governmental organisations in the country, most of which are human rights and charity-oriented.
Under this law, security agencies have extensive power over the existence of NGOs (of which the country has about 47,000), especially as concerns their registration and financing. For example, existing organisations have to re-register their centres, new foreign organisations are required to pay $16,500 to operate within the country, and location or relocation of a headquarters is subject to government approval.
Also, organisations are not allowed to carry out any fieldwork or publish the results of their findings without express permission from the government. Defaulters of this latest law face five years in prison and around $55,000 in fines.
The Egyptian government and lawmakers in support of the new law argue that NGOs in the country – particularly those that receive foreign funding – contribute to the chaos in the country which has roots in the 2011 Egyptian political crisis. According to this argument, the strict regulation of these organisations is a matter of national security.
However, human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, believe that the implementation of this law is another move by the Egyptian government to eliminate all forms of opposition it faces from the public due its antagonistic rule. Since 2013, President el-Sisi’s assent to power along with his administration has been characterised by numerous acts in human rights violation, including arrests, abductions, murders, tortures, and bans.
In 2015, Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) reported that within a year of the president’s rise to power, about 2,600 lives were lost to violence. Various other reports also decry the blatant disregard for human rights that appears to thrive undisturbed under the president’s watch.
Earlier this month, President el-Sisi stated that “human rights and freedom in Egypt should not be viewed from a Western perspective”, to the chagrin of activists. Up until now, rights groups still call for investigations into the violent human rights abuses carried out by Egyptian authorities to no avail.
Thus, based on el-Sisi’s brief but chequered history with human rights in the country, his real motives in passing the regulatory bill are beyond questionable – they’re obvious. As a matter of fact, this bill has been years in the making and received approval in November 2016.
If the provisions of the law against NGOs in Egypt are met, activists lament that communities who benefit from their charity and protection would be left even more exposed to abuse from those in power.
